Report 718
Report #718 Skillset: Necromancy Skill: Ghost Org: Nihilists Status: Rejected Oct 2011 Furies' Decision: We are rejecting this report and note we have repeatedly stated this would not change. Problem: Ghost is our primary safety skill and in certain situations our infiltration skill. The issue with this though is it is stopped by water, which we cannot move in. Considering Celest is our opposing organization, not to mention all the territories, water is very prevailent and the use of this skill is often negated. Solution #1: Allow Ghost to move through water Player Comments: ---on 10/15 @ 06:53 writes: It's silly that as a ghost you need traction against a solid surface. Can Ghosts fly? In any case, I think Sol 1 is reasonable. ---on 10/15 @ 08:38 writes: Didn't report 432 already try this and was rejected? Perhaps a different approach could be used ---on 10/15 @ 13:10 writes: Definitely need some new ideas. Not just report 432, but it's been envoyed and submitted over and over and over and always gets rejected. It's a backbone of the Vision for ghosts. (That said, as far as game balance goes I still support this) ---on 10/15 @ 22:57 writes: While I don't necessarily disagree with this, I feel a new solution would attract more support from the decision makers. ---on 10/15 @ 23:23 writes: Like maybe... letting ghosts tumble? ---on 10/15 @ 23:26 writes: I've always found the answer "Ghosts can't be allowed to cross water because Deluge is needed to stop ghosts" to be spurious, since only Celest has access to deluge. Support solution 1. ---on 10/16 @ 01:46 writes: Maybe as a solution, make water drag Ghosts down/slow them, so they can still move through, but with a 1 second delay? ---on 10/16 @ 05:57 writes: The fact that Celest is Magnagora's opposing organization makes me feel that ghosts should definitely be stopped by water rather than the other way around. However, I can agree to make the movement of ghosts less restrictive (water/special exits) IF something else was implemented to allow us to stop them at all. I have suggested eye sigils in the past because I think that is the most reasonable. ---on 10/16 @ 13:38 writes: Eye Sigils would make it to easy to completley negate the skill even more so than water. There should be no reason why our main escape skill has such a hard counter to it, which comes up a great deal in fighting. If this was the case and we wanted fairness, I would have asked for Trueheal barrier to drop when used in tainted environments. Ghost has been argued for years now about it being so restricted and yes it does keep getting asked to be fixed, and no, there should be no hard counter to it, as it has restrictions already to using and a ghost can be seen, attacked, and distort drops ghost. ---on 10/16 @ 18:54 writes: The idea here is that moving water dispels/stops evil spirits and therefore ghosts. I think objections to this change in the past have been due to the RP of ghost, and therefore are immune to most arguments of balance. How does immunity/reduction to damage in liquidform work? I would consider those two skills more similar then ghost and trueheal. ---on 10/16 @ 18:56 writes: So, perhaps that could be amended to be "Allow ghosts to move over all but NATURAL water features". That way you can move in deluge, but not across the natural energy/purity channels of freshwater streams. ---on 10/16 @ 19:53 writes: That would still restrict it's use on Water and in the SoD/Inner Sea plus other areas of the basin. It's been said before that Balance > RP/Realism, and this is what I'm hoping to address, balance. ---on 10/17 @ 07:12 writes: A rubble like delay was the first thing that came to mind for me as well. I think that's pretty reasonable. If 1s is deemed too short, 2s would work- some middleground would be good here. ---on 10/17 @ 14:48 writes: Liquidform is full damage immunity, but can only be done in a demesne, while ghost can be done anywhere. The power cost is also different. Liquidform is 10, Ghost is 3. ---on 10/17 @ 19:55 writes: Solution 1 seems fine, I don't really see a balance issue there and just from a reason stand point why would ghosts be stopped by water ---on 10/18 @ 00:42 writes: Please don't compare liquidform to ghost, they are not even close to being the same. One is immunity, no resitrctions in casting (from what I am told), and allwos you to heal others in your demense. Ghost has restrictions which stops its use, can be attacked while in it, is stopped by distort (which is very often active), drains willpower pretty quickly, and of course, can't cross water. ---on 10/19 @ 04:50 writes: I'd like to reiterate: The argument that ghosts should be stopped from going over water for RP reasons is silly. There is no mention anywhere else in the game of ghosts being unable to cross water, not even in the AB file for Necromancy Ghost itself. Water doesn't stop dreamweavers, dead people, ancestor spirits or denizen ghosts/spectres/spirits and, in one case (Marilynth) a ghost lives -exclusively- underwater. There is no rolepay reason for any sort of lusternian magic to be stopped by flowing water, with the sole possible exception of non-aquamantic elementalism. ---on 10/20 @ 05:09 writes: I agree, that's just the only reason I've ever heard for why it works the way it does. ---on 10/25 @ 07:18 writes: I'm for solution 1 ---on 10/27 @ 17:49 writes: I can get behind ghost moving across water if eyesigils are made to prevent their movement. If you want to argue that dw's, souls etc can move across water then it makes sense that whatever stops them (eyesigils) stops ghosts too ---on 10/27 @ 20:32 writes: Dreamwavers can move across eye sigils. They just can't enter dreamwave envelop/coalesce on one. Likewise, spectre denizens, the Paavik ghosts, the spirits in Wend/Spirit Plane/spiritsinger spirits and so forth are all able to cross eye sigils. Only souls are blocked by eye sigils. ---on 10/28 @ 06:01 writes: To confirm, Iytha is correct. Eye sigils do not stop leaving your body as a dreamweaver or moving into the eye sigil'd room. Eye sigils stop these two things: Enveloping (picking up) items at the location of the eye sigil. Coalescing at the location of the eye sigil. Eye sigils do nothing more to dreamweavers. ---on 10/28 @ 16:50 writes: That's true, but you cannot use Dreamweaving as an escape tool. The body that is left behind is vulnerable. This is not the case when using Ghost. I feel that having eye sigils stop their movement is a fair counter (instead of water, doors, and special exits). ---on 10/28 @ 18:01 writes: My bad about DW's. In game ghosts and necromancy ghosting seems like two different things, so I don't feel they are comparable. I kind of agree with Inagin, Ghosts need a counter, especially if it's made so they can cross water. Violet/kether just doesn't cut it because it doesn't do anything besides damage, so you can just run away. ---on 10/29 @ 02:04 writes: I don't know why removing a very specific counter that only one guild can counter requires adding a counter to everyone. Before, the vast majority of people couldn't counter it and there weren't problems. ---on 10/29 @ 16:33 writes: That's why I mentioned giving them the ability to walk through doors and use special exits too (things Necromancy users have complained about in the past). Every guild should have a counter to it and I think this is a good compromise. ---on 10/29 @ 23:12 writes: The only reason why they'd need to be stopped by eye sigils if if they were able to pass through doors. Ghosts cannot and do not need to be able to walk through doors. Thus, ghosts do not need to be stopped by eye sigils. ---on 10/30 @ 02:33 writes: The eye sigils suggestion is just a stronger restriction, worse than water is currently. Ghost is just not some free excape skill, it still has restrictions to use, still drains willpower very fast, costs power to put up, drops in distortion, and can still be attacked. Eye sigil restriction is just rediculous as that just makes the skill even easier to counter and stop it's use. As suggested before, if it's felt there really needs to be a restriction in water, make it delayed movement.